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The Bell Jar (P.S.)

by Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar (P.S.) Cover

ISBN13: 9780060837020
ISBN10: 0060837020
All Product Details

 

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under — maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Synopsis:

This extraordinary work--echoing Plath's own experiences as a rising writer/editor in the early 1950s--chronicles the nervous breakdown of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, successful, but slowly going under, and maybe for the last time.

About the Author

To this day, Sylvia Plath's writings continue to inspire and provoke. Her only published novel, The Bell Jar, remains a classic of American literature, and The Colossus(1960), Ariel (1965), Crossing the Water(1971), Winter Trees(1971), and The Collected Poems(1981) have placed her among this century's essential American poets.

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, the first child of Aurelia and Otto Plath. When Sylvia was eight years old, her father died--an event that would haunt her remaining years--and the family moved to the college town of Wellesley. By high school, Plath's talents were firmly established; in fact, her first published poem had appeared when she was eight. In 1950, she entered Smith College, where she excelled academically and continued to write; and in 1951 she won Mademoiselle magazine's fiction contest. Her experiences during the summer of 1953--as a guest editor at Mademoiselle in New York City and in deepening depression back home--provided the basis for The Bell Jar. Near that summer's end, Plath nearly succeeded in killing herself. After therapy and electroshock, however, she resumed her academic and literary endeavors. Plath graduated from Smith in 1955 and, as a Fulbright Scholar, entered Newnham College, in Cambridge, England, where she met the British poet, Ted Hughes. They were married a year later. After a two-year tenure on the Smith College faculty and a brief stint in Boston, Plath and Hughes returned to England, where their two children were born.

Plath had been successful in placing poems in several prestigious magazines, but suffered repeated rejection in her attempts to place a first book. The Colossus appeared in England, however, in the fall of 1960, and the publisher, William Heinemann, also bought her first novel. By June 1962, she had begun the poems that eventually appeared in Ariel. Later that year, separated from Hughes, Plath immersed herself in caring for her children, completing The Bell Jar, and writing poems at a breathtaking pace.

A few days before Christmas 1962, she moved with the children to a London flat. By the time The Bell Jarwas published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, in early 1963, she was in desperate circumstances. Her marriage was over, she and her children were ill, and the winter was the coldest in a century. Early on the morning of February 11, Plath turned on the cooking gas and killed herself.

Plath was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for her Collected Poems.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 3 comments:

Sophia Aguinaga, September 18, 2011 (view all comments by Sophia Aguinaga)
Sylvia's description of this girl's journey is the most moving composition I have ever read. She uses her words almost as weapons, offering you no option but to see the world through Esther's dark eyes. While Esther's idealism offers light, she cannot seem to find any actuality in her idealism and grows dark. Knowing Plath's story and end, having read collections of her journal entries, I find the story to be less fiction than is suggested. There is beauty in such a sad story. It seems that Plath had a heart so big she couldn't bear to let it live. Among her writings, this piece offers something more concrete than just her poetry or journal entries: her perception of her whole story rather than just pieces of her thoughts.
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AmyChen, January 1, 2011 (view all comments by AmyChen)
I couldn't remember very many books I read in 2010 due to my awful memory, but the Bell Jar was one of my favorites. It started out a little too feminine for me, but after the main character's life (based off of Sylvia Plath's own life) starts spiraling downhill the book becomes very interesting and made me want to read until the very end. It showed how a person's life can change, no matter how "normal" they seem in the beginning.
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crowyhead, July 18, 2008 (view all comments by crowyhead)
I hadn't read this autobiographical novel since high school, so I figured maybe it was time to re-read it. It was actually quite different from what I'd remembered; I'd forgotten that more than half of the book takes place BEFORE Esther goes to the hospital. I'd also forgotten -- or just hadn't picked up before -- how mordantly funny the book is. Esther's observations about the people around her and her reactions to them are incredibly witty, and even her description of a depressive's twisted thinking is tinged with the humor of someone looking back wryly. The book is sad and serious as well, but since I had missed the humor before, that was what I ended up concentrating on.

There was much that I found confusing the first time I read this book. Plath's description of the slow slide into depression and the incredible inertia involved is SO spot-on, but I think in some ways it would be confusing and somewhat incomprehensible to someone who doesn't have more intimate knowledge of the experience. I could be wrong, though; it may just be that it resonated much more deeply this time around than it did when I first read the book.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780060837020
Author:
Plath, Sylvia
Publisher:
Harper Perennial
Illustrator:
PLATH, SYLVIA
Foreword by:
McCullough, Frances
Foreword:
McCullough, Frances
Author:
by Sylvia Plath
Author:
PLATH, SYLVIA
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Classics
Subject:
Depression, mental
Subject:
Women college students
Subject:
Psychological fiction
Subject:
Suicidal behavior
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Copyright:
Edition Description:
Trade PB
Series:
P.S.
Publication Date:
20050831
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
288
Dimensions:
8.02x5.30x.70 in. .48 lbs.

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The Bell Jar (P.S.) New Trade Paper
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Product details 288 pages Harper Perennial - English 9780060837020 Reviews:
"Synopsis" by , This extraordinary work--echoing Plath's own experiences as a rising writer/editor in the early 1950s--chronicles the nervous breakdown of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, successful, but slowly going under, and maybe for the last time.

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